Each year, the University of Toronto Drama Coalition sponsors a festival at Hart House Theatre for students from each college to write, produce, direct, and star in original plays. Those plays are performed once each and judged by an expert in the field who will name, at the festival’s conclusion, its winners and losers. This year, blogUT will be attending and reporting on all of the plays at the 2012 U of T Drama Festival and letting you know how your college matches up to others in the dramatic arts.

February 18

Victoria College Dramatic Society: Arriver, aimer, et partir by Phyllis Pearson, directed by Lindsay Mayer

In the first and only entry by Victoria College to this year’s festival, Noa requested the assistance of stranger Ethan to help her move into her new home, only to find that the apartment she’d rented was unliveable and, at a surprisingly quick request, moved in with Ethan. The play continued at that speed; Noa moved in permanently and got a spare key within the first few minutes, although I’d imagine that if every woman moved in with the stranger who helped her move, many would be dead. Noa and Ethan quickly developed a bond, and Ethan explained his aspirations to build a new type of hang-glider so that people could go where the wind took them while Noa began tutoring a child in French passé composé, with an emphasis on etre auxiliary verbs that “have to do with motion”. The cast was delightfully bubbly – too much so – and each extended hand gesture and smile made Arriver, aimer, et partir seem more like a cartoon and less like the moving play about love and life it could have been. Couple in several extended blackout scene changes that seemed to make up about half the stage time and an entirely undefined space on stage and the execution of the piece quickly fell apart. Arriver, aimer, et partir had a cute and interesting script but was awkwardly presented in a way that took a lot of the joy out of it. I predicted no awards for this play.

University of Toronto Mississauga: Days Like These by Andrew Di Rosa, directed by Natasha Ramondino

In the third entry by UTM, Janet and Alan’s unstable marriage was shaken further when an old friend arrived to stay with them for a while during his seperation. The visitor, handsome and charismatic Joey, sensed a change in Alan, who had recently been laid off, as the two reconnected over beer; Alan had become lethargic, while Janet felt that her life was stuck. Realistic dialogue and superb performances from some of the cast made some moments hilarious and others shocking, and Days Like These offered the perfect blend of comedy and intense drama. The set was intricate and complex, moreso than almost any other in the festival, and the direction and staging throughout offered a realistic depiction of fully-formed characters while still making good use of the stage. A complex script filled with realized characters and wonderful direction and acting made Days Like These an extraordinary show and, I thought, a likely contender for some awards.

 

 

The Awards

The awkward consequence of predicting award-winners and critiquing productions is having to eat crow if the winners don’t match my expectations, and last night there were quite a few surprises:

IATSE Local 58 Award for Technical Achievement
To UTM for Twilight Soldier

Hart House Theatre Award for Best Performance
To the ensemble of the cast of UTM’s Trail of Embrace

Robertson Davies Playwriting Award
To Kylah Thomson for UTM’s Trail of Embrace

Robert Gill Award for Best Direction
To Carter West for Hart House Players’ Mannequin Ensemble

President’s Award for Best Production
To UTM for Trail of Embrace

The technical award to Twilight Soldier was no surprise, as their use of lighting and sound was superb, but the lack of other awards for this piece shocked me. Trail of Embrace was the big winner for the evening, much bigger than I expected, and though the awards for the ensemble and production were not unexpected, recognition for the script was. It was funny and touching but lacked the depth of others such as those of Twilight Soldier, Down the Drain, and Days Like These, and its success evokes in me thoughts of Bridesmaids’ Melissa McCarthy’s Oscar nominations and the growing shift towards recognizing humour over serious work. The award for direction also came quite out of left field, but it is rather difficult to ascertain how much work was the director’s, the writer’s, and the actors’ when one hasn’t seen the script.

Overall, this year’s drama festival was a fascinating mix of humour and seriousness, with a strong emphasis on failed relationships. UTM presented the most consistently strong shows and all three were worthy of recognition. All plays except for one took place in the present day, although the ages of characters spanned from early adolescense to beyond middle age. Music and lighting techniques were relied on heavily in almost all of the plays. Sets were mostly minimalistic and contained, whereas almost all characters each had an emotional outburst at some point.

The U of T Drama Festival is an excellent opportunity for students from all walks of life to showcase their skills and talents, and a great place for others to watch and participate in the development of a collective culture. Attending all ten shows was a wonderful experience for me and I encourage everyone else to attend at least one night in 2013. You too can take part in the beauty that is the theatre and the wonderful world that is the University of Toronto.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2012 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Arts, Clubs, Contests, Entertainment, Events, On Campus, Review, theatre, UT Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.